Interesting Thought about the Nature of Existence -- While Self-Intoxicating!
So I'm currently experimenting with the effects of alcohol on reading comprehension and logic -- namely, drinking beer and reading about philosophy and history. I'm reading an article from Catholic.com, "Creation out of Nothing" and come across the following quotation from Theophilus of Antioch:
"Furthermore, inasmuch as God is uncreated, he is also unchangeable; so also, if matter were uncreated, it would be unchangeable and equal to God. That which is created is alterable and changeable, while that which is uncreated is unalterable and unchangeable. What great thing were it, if God made the world out of existing matter? Even a human artist, when he obtains material from someone, makes of it whatever he pleases. But the power of God is made evident in this, that he makes whatever he pleases out of what does not exist, and the giving of life and movement belongs to none other but to God alone" (To Autolycus 2:4 [A.D. 181]).
The thought occurred to me while reading this paragraph that perhaps we are to God in some manner as our dreams (i.e. imagination) are to us. When we daydream, or dream (which makes the daydream more vivid), our thoughts are in a certain sense real to us; this person doing this action does exist in our mind, although it ceases to exist when we cease thinking about it. Perhaps, in a similar way, our physical universe exists as God imagines it, and, were God to stop thinking of us, we would cease to exist. I mean to say that perhaps God gave us the ability to daydream so we might come to understand something of how God holds us in existence.
I'm seeing that alcohol makes it difficult to articulate ideas, in the same manner that it inhibits motor function.
"Furthermore, inasmuch as God is uncreated, he is also unchangeable; so also, if matter were uncreated, it would be unchangeable and equal to God. That which is created is alterable and changeable, while that which is uncreated is unalterable and unchangeable. What great thing were it, if God made the world out of existing matter? Even a human artist, when he obtains material from someone, makes of it whatever he pleases. But the power of God is made evident in this, that he makes whatever he pleases out of what does not exist, and the giving of life and movement belongs to none other but to God alone" (To Autolycus 2:4 [A.D. 181]).
The thought occurred to me while reading this paragraph that perhaps we are to God in some manner as our dreams (i.e. imagination) are to us. When we daydream, or dream (which makes the daydream more vivid), our thoughts are in a certain sense real to us; this person doing this action does exist in our mind, although it ceases to exist when we cease thinking about it. Perhaps, in a similar way, our physical universe exists as God imagines it, and, were God to stop thinking of us, we would cease to exist. I mean to say that perhaps God gave us the ability to daydream so we might come to understand something of how God holds us in existence.
I'm seeing that alcohol makes it difficult to articulate ideas, in the same manner that it inhibits motor function.